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Fonality Survey Indicates Encouraging Telecom Modernization Push

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October 16, 2015

By Christopher Mohr
Contributing Writer

A recent survey conducted by Fonality (News - Alert) made conclusions that should surprise no one with at least a passing interest in business telecommunications technology. In a nutshell, the typical worker is moving away from the traditional arrangement of using a desk phone from a cubicle workspace, while IT departments struggle to keep technology current.

At the moment, a majority of employees still prefer the traditional desk phone for making business calls, but this majority is slim at 51.6 percent. It can be likened to a tiring runner leading a footrace, but looking back at a pack of runners about to take over the lead. A combined total of 48.5 percent of respondents prefer mobile (37 percent) or soft phones (11 percent).

These results are consistent with other surveys/reports about the rise of BYOD. On the surface, BYOD would seem to be nothing more than a company policy, but it is actually a rapidly-growing business. According to MarketsandMarkets, for example, BYOD globally was a $71.93 billion market, and will nearly quadruple to $266.17 billion in 2019. Both software and hardware vendors develop solutions that provide better security and device management in a BYOD environment.

Fonality also found that 34 percent of employees work outside the office. These results are consistent with a survey of employees conducted by FlexJobs, which falls short of indicting the typical office environment for being counterproductive. Only 24 percent felt they were most productive at the office during normal working hours. The remainder preferred to either work at the office outside such hours, or from an alternative location like home, a coffee shop, or a library.

As a modern example of the ‘cobbler’s children have no shoes’ syndrome, Fonality found that nearly half of those in IT management that were surveyed reported that they still used a traditional PBX (News - Alert). A survey of 1,024 businesses by Evolve IP found that 80 percent of them still used on-premises communications. These statistics measure different phenomena, and while both surveys were commissioned by communications vendors, they indicate an untapped market for cloud-based telephone solutions that speaks louder than salesmanship.

When you compile all the results from all the surveys, whether from Fonality or other sources, one conclusion is clear: businesses are changing the way they communicate, and to remain competitive as employers and as businesses, they need to keep up or risk placing themselves at a competitive disadvantage. The good news is that one way they are keeping up is by leveraging tools like unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and a host of real-time communications and collaboration tools.